


It's All Your Fault

by HurricanesatDawn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bacon, Eating Disorders, M/M, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:29:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HurricanesatDawn/pseuds/HurricanesatDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Jim's eating habits. Moran's involvement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's All Your Fault

**Author's Note:**

> Based in part on my own experiences with an eating disorder. Possibly quite trigger-y. You have been warned.

When Jim was thirteen, a boy on the school trip had called him fat. _‘Fat little Jimmy. Fat like a pig. Piggy Jimmy! Piggy, piggy!’_ He’d stared at the mirror for an hour, looking at his naked body from every conceivable angle. He hadn’t thought that he was fat, he didn’t look chubby. It didn’t make sense that the boy would say that about him, when no one else had before.

He experimented with not eating after that. He’d always eaten three meals a day, lots of vegetables, but the idea of not eating interested him enough that he decided to try it out. No one noticed the first time he skipped a meal. No one cared. So he did it again. Eating a few bites here and there, sometimes cutting out food entirely for days.

It would make him smile. Felt euphoric at times. He could almost imagine himself floating above the clouds, blissful as can be. 

The more meals he skipped, the easier it became. Eating just enough to feel it when he’d stop, he would stare at himself in the mirrors for longer and longer. He became fascinated by his own reflection.

The way his bones stuck out, how he could so easily count his ribs never ceased to make him smile dazedly at himself. He’d been called pretty his entire life, _‘Such a pretty boy. Jimmy’s just like a girl. He’s got the face and the body. He’s such a pretty boy. So pretty.’_ But for the first time, he began to truly believe those words. They sounded so nice echoing in his ears. _“I’m pretty, I’m actually pretty,”_ he would whisper to himself, as if barely understanding the words. _“My body’s lovely.”_

Food lost its taste to him. It used to be that he would derive pleasure from eating. The way it tasted, the way it smelt, the texture, the feeling of it scraping down his throat. Even that grew boring. He lost interest in it all. He’d found something better, something more enjoyable than food. Eating began to make him feel sick. He’d grow full after just a few bites. 

_‘Yucky food. Disgusting. Awful. Why do people want to eat?’_

It was so much fun to see how long he could go before he felt too light headed to stand. It was an experiment to him at times. _‘How long can I go? How long can piggy go?_

_‘Ten days. Piggy can go ten days. Ten days without food before his body betrays him and he grows too weak. Ten days. That’s all? Just ten days?’_

The days would blur together delightfully, his thoughts colliding until time felt like it was rushing past his head without him. He wouldn’t grow tired, no matter how long he went or what his body screamed at him in the dark. He would feel stronger, more in control, like he was on top of the world. 

Life, he decided for the first time in his memory, was worth living. Things were coloured so beautifully this way. So bright, like the sun was shining on them, just for them, just for him.

The sun. He could feel the sun, even when it wasn’t out, even when it was hidden from sight behind the dark, angry clouds. It shone bright just for him, feeling as if it might burn out his eyes if he stared for too long.

_‘So pretty._

_‘Why do people eat?’_

It took months for anyone to ever notice. He wore baggy clothes to school, never touched anyone unless necessary. No one noticed any change in his appearance, in his behavior. No one ever questioned him on anything.

It wasn’t that they were scared of him. They just didn’t care at all. He meant nothing to them. They never stopped to stare, except in his head. They’d laugh at him when he closed his eyes. _‘Piggy Jimmy. He’s such a pig. Piggy, piggy, here comes the piggy. Get out of the way or he’ll eat you too!’_

_‘I’ll show them,’_ he resolved. _‘I’ll show them that I’m more than that. I’m better than them. I’ll be better at them in this too.’_

The first person to notice the difference in him was one of his teachers. _‘The bad one. I don’t like him. He looks at me funny.’_

Mr Richards went to the Headmaster. _‘Bad Mr. Richards. Mean Mr Richards. Why did he have to stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong? He should mind his own business and find a different boy to bother.’_

The Headmaster didn’t care. Jim could see it in his eyes. He’d spent enough afternoons in the Headmaster’s office to know that the man didn’t care about any of them. He was there for the paycheck. Mr Richards insisted that there was something wrong. _“Look at the boy, Pete. Just look at him. He’s wasting away, and no one’s noticed!”_

_“Come on, Dick. Are you sure it’s not just problems at home? You know we can’t get involved in that.”_

_“School lunches. He’s been turning down school lunches. Or, even worse, he’ll take them and dump them in the rubbish bins behind the girl’s lav immediately. Don’t even try and tell me that something isn’t wrong with the boy.”_

The Headmaster had stared over his glasses, his beady eyes glassed over from too much whisky, and snorted. _“Whatever you say, Dick. Take him to the nurse’s office and tell them to deal with him. I don’t get what you expect me to be able to do about it.”_

Mr Richards had put his hand on Jim’s shoulders and led him down the long hallway to the nurse’s office. The walls felt like they were closing in around him. It was too small, to quiet, too empty. _‘People. There are no people. Where have all the people gone?’_

The light seemed to shudder around him, the darkness creeping in just beyond his eyelids. _‘But why? So pretty. Why is the light going away?’_

He woke to the sight of the nurse standing over him, shining a light into his eyes. _‘No, bad light. Ugly light. Wrong light. Wrong, wrong, wrong.’_

_“Jimmy? Jimmy Moriarty? Listen here, young man. You’re not allowed to worry good folk like us like that. You hear me? Pay attention over here. I’m talking to you, young man. You got us all up in a tizzy with worry over you. Apologise for that this instant.”_

“ _Sorry, Miss.”_ Smiling emptily at the woman, Jim couldn’t be bothered to argue. _“Didn’t mean to worry anyone.”_

He didn’t like her. She was loud, too loud, and she always smelt of pancake batter.

They sent him to a doctor after that. The man diagnosed him with an eating disorder with a pretty name. Jim liked that name. It sounded good to his ears. Sounded like something a Moriarty would have.

_‘Anorexia Nervosa.’_

They didn’t leave him in hospital. His parents refused, they didn’t have the money.

The yelling lasted for hours. Jim lost track, spinning in and out of consciousness through the noise. It seemed to never end. Every time he would open his eyes, it would be to the sight of his parents yelling at him over his stupidity. _‘Not worthy of the Moriarty name. Weak. He was weak. Weak and foolish.’_

_“That’s nice, mother. Thank you for that,”_ he dreamt that he murmured at her. _“Tell me what you really think.”_

They made him eat.

He had to eat six times a day. Small meals, _“So as not to overstimulate his stomach”,_ the doctors said. Jim didn’t like them. They talked over his head, like he wasn’t there. Like he was just a portrait on the wall.

_‘Can I be the one of the dogs playing poker? No?’_

He got better. Within a year, he was back to his normal weight.

The first thing he did when he saw his reflection was to shatter the mirror.

He didn’t want to look at himself again. _‘Piggy. Piggy, piggy, piggy. Not lovely. Not pretty. Piggy. Piggy Jimmy Moriarty.’_

_  
_

_**> <><><**_

_**  
**_

It wasn’t something about which he thought most days. He rarely passed the time in memory of the past. The past was boring. The past was a story better left untold.

He didn’t always eat. Not every day. It wasn’t that he’d do it intentionally. Forgetting to eat was easy. Food wasn’t something to which he dedicated more than the occasional passing thought.

Food was boring. There were more interesting things to occupy his mind.

There was only one mirror in his flat. The one above the sink by the toilet. It was just large enough to show his head and his hair. Nothing below the neck.

It wasn’t that he was bothered by his reflection. It was boring. So boring to look at himself. Much more interesting things to do.

_‘Piggy.’_

Sebastian never questioned this. Sebastian wasn’t allowed to question a fair amount of things. There was a list. He considered posting it above the refrigerator once. Deciding against writing it out. Making a list means that the list will be questioned.

Sebastian should never question the list.

Lists were not meant to be questioned. Lists were there to tell facts, to finish arguments. You weren’t supposed to discuss lists, except when writing them.

Sebastian liked to cook. He cooked a lot. Jim tried to yell at him about this once, when he’d left the kitchen a mess overnight.

_“Fuck you, Moran. Fuck you and your messes. What, did you never learn to clean up after yourself?”_

Sebastian had looked down at him with a soft smile, smoothing his hands over Jim’s shoulders. _“Hey, I’m sorry. I was tired. I’ll clean it up now, okay? There’s no reason to be upset. Won’t happen again.”_

He’d glared up at Sebastian for a full minute before breaking. It was his smile. Everything could be blamed on the curve of Sebastian’s lips. Everything.

_“Great. Breakfast?”_

If there was one thing Jim didn’t want to allow inside his house, it was bacon. The problem with that? Sebastian was horribly, painfully fond of the stuff. He would come home with it crowing in joy. _“Jim! Jim! Look what I got. Bacon!”_

The smell alone was enough to make him feel sick. Being around it was awful. 

_“I hate bacon,”_ he lost count how many times he’d said that. Over and over. _“I hate bacon. I hate bacon. Get the bacon out of my house. Out!”_

_“Don’t be like that, love. You don’t have to eat it. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t!”_

Sebastian would smile at him like a kid in a candy store. Turning away with his lips still mouthing the word over and over. _‘Bacon.’_

_“You’re going to get fat one of these days!”_

_“More of me to love!”_ Sebastian almost always paired those words with a dramatic pose and the fluttering of his eyelashes.

_‘More of you to poke with a stick when you die.’_

Sebastian seemed to delight in making him eat. _“Come on, just one more bite. Won’t hurt. Jim! I went to all the trouble of buying this food and cooking it up for you, and you eat that little? I’m hurt, I really am. Does my time mean so little to you?”_

_‘Just one more bite.’_

_“Fine. One more bite. No more after that. I’m full.”_

His grin. His fucking _grin._

_‘I hate you sometimes.’_

_  
_

The End.


End file.
